Author
Topic: The NEW Game Journal

I just got to Roppongi and I really like the story/mystery the game has set up.

I don't mind the voice acting and I generally like the new soundtrack.

The demon designs are *horrendous*. Like teenager sketchbook anime bad. Medusa was the first one I saw that really stood out as terrible.

The overworld map is just a clusterfuck. It's terribly designed and hard to navigate around. I'm not generally one to complain about RPGs on handhelds, but I think it would've helped navigating if the game were on a TV rather than a handheld device. Sometimes it's just hard to see where I'm supposed to go.

At the very least, they could have marked off places you had already visited, so you knew what they were. I've given up a number of side quests because I just haven't been able to figure out where the hell I'm supposed to go. The worst part is missing out on the easy experience for finishing the missions.

Playing this right after playing Soul Hackers was pretty shocking because it seems like Atlus followed a general design pattern right up to Strange Journey - not copied themselves but had general motifs - that went out the window with this game.

I don't mind all of the changes but the map really makes the game a pain in the ass to play, and I'm not sure I can be bothered to finish it, much less do a second playthrough.

For the time being I've set it aside. I got all of my extra familiars from the Wizard's Edition finally and sat down and started a playthrough of Ni No Kuni. It's really nice to play a game with a sense of adventure again. In some ways it reminds me of Grandia. Oliver's voice actor is terrible but Drippy's is so great that I can just concentrate on him. The localisation is fan - freaking - tastic for this game.

I just got to Roppongi and I really like the story/mystery the game has set up.

I don't mind the voice acting and I generally like the new soundtrack.

The demon designs are *horrendous*. Like teenager sketchbook anime bad. Medusa was the first one I saw that really stood out as terrible.

The overworld map is just a clusterfuck. It's terribly designed and hard to navigate around. I'm not generally one to complain about RPGs on handhelds, but I think it would've helped navigating if the game were on a TV rather than a handheld device. Sometimes it's just hard to see where I'm supposed to go.

At the very least, they could have marked off places you had already visited, so you knew what they were. I've given up a number of side quests because I just haven't been able to figure out where the hell I'm supposed to go. The worst part is missing out on the easy experience for finishing the missions.

Playing this right after playing Soul Hackers was pretty shocking because it seems like Atlus followed a general design pattern right up to Strange Journey - not copied themselves but had general motifs - that went out the window with this game.

I don't mind all of the changes but the map really makes the game a pain in the ass to play, and I'm not sure I can be bothered to finish it, much less do a second playthrough.

The minimap kinda sorta helps in telling you where you've been versus haven't been to yet, but that only really works on your first visit. There's also certain quests that require you to hang out on a very specific spot on the map until a particular demon shows up or something and your only indication as to whether you're in the right spot or not is the name of the location on top of the minimap.

Honestly, I probably won't give this a second playthrough without abusing the DLC and I don't think its worth paying for said DLC to begin with.

The minimap kinda sorta helps in telling you where you've been versus haven't been to yet, but that only really works on your first visit. There's also certain quests that require you to hang out on a very specific spot on the map until a particular demon shows up or something and your only indication as to whether you're in the right spot or not is the name of the location on top of the minimap.

The minimap kinda sorta helps in telling you where you've been versus haven't been to yet, but that only really works on your first visit. There's also certain quests that require you to hang out on a very specific spot on the map until a particular demon shows up or something and your only indication as to whether you're in the right spot or not is the name of the location on top of the minimap.

I haven't seen any names on the minimap. Am I completely blind?

On the top of the mini map screen (aka the bottom screen), the name of the area you are in is displayed (this is separate from the region you are in (i.e. Ueno, Shibuya, Ikebukuro, Roppongi, ect); I don't recall the game displaying a name for that). Of course, the minimap won't display where the areas' boundaries are but they're easy enough to figure out when you see the name change. This also applies to dungeon maps which can help with quests like the one where you need to take a picture of the Bar in Shibuya's Golden Gai's district.

Edit: Meanwhile, I've finally hit chapter 5 in Valkyrie Profile 2. Christ! Does Dylan's departure items have to suck that much? 2 attacks and no added benefits on top of the fact that there's nobody left to use them for all of 200 Attack over Agharim's best departure item. At least Lezard's netted me a Homunculus' Seed (which is pretty damn useful for a straight 20% damage reduction on all elemental attack types). At least it doesn't look like I need to do any more powerleveling for now (and perhaps the rest of the game).

Beyond: Two Souls comes out today. A game I am very interested in. I check gamerankings.com and there isn't a single review for it. What the heck is that about? Are they being held back for some nefarious reason? This doesn't bode well.

Beyond: Two Souls comes out today. A game I am very interested in. I check gamerankings.com and there isn't a single review for it. What the heck is that about? Are they being held back for some nefarious reason? This doesn't bode well.

It doesn't have to be a bad sign. Big publishers make reviewers sign NDAs just to make themselves feel more important all the time. Welcome to the world of modern game journalism...

Beyond: Two Souls comes out today. A game I am very interested in. I check gamerankings.com and there isn't a single review for it. What the heck is that about? Are they being held back for some nefarious reason? This doesn't bode well.

It doesn't have to be a bad sign. Big publishers make reviewers sign NDAs just to make themselves feel more important all the time. Welcome to the world of modern game journalism...

It doesn't have to be a bad sign...but it probably is. Review embargoes happen all the time, of course, but going this far is abnormal. Particularly for Sony, as they almost always seem to allow reviews to go up really early when they have confidence in a game. This behavior is really suspicious...

Here's the thing: I have absolutely no issue with interactive fiction, even if the interactivity is minimal (so long as the fiction part is good...). Heck, I like visual novels and it's hard to think of a game genre less interactive than those.

In a VN you can sometimes go hours without even making a single decision, just reading. But when you do make decisions they're actually meaningful, and change the outcome of the story. In this sense, Beyond: Two Souls is the opposite (based on what I've read, haven't played it yet...). The game is constantly making you push buttons and stuff, but other than a slightly different animation here and there your actions have absolutely no bearing on where the story is going. For all its faults there were some significant divergences of the story in Heavy Rain. That doesn't seem to be the case here. The way the story was written simply doesn't allow for variations, so you're only allowed to affect things that don't matter...

And that's kind of stupid. This is the first time when all those "David Cage should have just made a movie" criticisms seem valid to me...